Tools to dig up family roots featured at Family History Fair!

It’s been a year now since I participated – almost by chance – in the Family History Fair sponsored by the Friends of the Minneapolis Central Library. I had dropped in to check out the exhibits – and ended up staying for the day, immersed in the mountains of literature, the media productions, the lectures and, most of all, the people who were eager to share the resources and support organizations that had helped them search for their own roots.

This was also the day that I met members of the Friends of the Minneapolis Central Library. (https://www.supporthclib.org/minneapolis-central) Since that first encounter my awareness and appreciation of the unique resources of the Central Library have been enriched. The rich programming Friends of the Central Library offers this community open the doors of the Central Library – and the minds of library users.

At that same Family History Fair I learned more about the Minnesota Genealogical Society. (http://www.mngs.org ) Though I had visited the MGS office in South St. Paul several times, I discovered more about the organization’s services to ethnic groups, individual genealogists and historians.

So this year I’m eager to share the word that the Family History Fair 2016, sponsored by these two organizations, is set for Saturday, October 30, 9:00-3:00 at Minneapolis Central Library.

Plan to spend a day that’s jammed with tantalizing sessions. Tom Rice, Director of the Irish Genealogy Society International, will set the pace with his Keynote on “Getting started with your genealogy and moving forward the right way.” The day’s sessions run the gamut, from “Railroad records and railroad history” to “Finding your female ancestors” to “Cousins by the dozens: Using autosomal DNA.” You’ll be challenged to fit it all in.

Experience assures me that the exhibits will be great – staffed by the state’s most knowledgeable family historians!